


Run with Wolves

by JonStark



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 05:24:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2496038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JonStark/pseuds/JonStark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>New mother Jeyne Westerling meets a strange man on the road who offers help to the son of Robb Stark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run with Wolves

_“Robb… Robb come back for us.”_

_“I shall Jeyne; for you and your family.”_

_“Not my family,” Jeyne whispered. “Our family.”_

_He looked at her strangely. “Our family?”_

_“Our family,” she confirmed with a smile._

_In a daze, Robb dismounted his horse and assisted his Lady wife in doing do, lifting her from around her waist and pulling her off the chestnut mare. He did not remove his hands from her hips, but his grasp on her tightened as he pulled her closer, their faces barely inches apart._

_“How long have you known?”_

_“A few days, I just didn’t want to tell you because I knew you were leaving. I couldn’t let you leave without knowing now, could I?” She laughed prettily. “Robb come back for us.”_

_He kissed her pink lips, laughing in between laughs. “I promise to come back to you.”_

She cried every night when she recollected that last memory with him. Jeyne Stark remembered how happy he had been when she told him: the smile that had played on his lips when he began to figure it out, then the broad, toothy beam when he realised he was going to be a father. His short little laughs, the steam that came out his mouth, frosting in the air and intermingling with Jeyne’s own. Then the way his lips tasted: burned bacon and ale and the gleam in his cerulean eyes if water would then drown her. His hands on her waist… His hair in between her fingers… Gods she loved him so much.

She loved his son too. Robb would have been so proud of their boy. He looked so much like him: red hair, blue eyes and pretty face. He would grow to be as big and strong and honourable as his father; Jeyne knew that for certain. Jeyne would be as good of a mother to her son as Lady Catelyn had been to Robb. That was why she was in the Riverlands: trying to find her way to Riverrun, to find an ally somewhere in these vast lands. Now she was running out of silver and had birthed the babe in an empty room, alone, in the basement of some Inn a woman had loaned to her out of pity. She was still in that Inn now, in the dark of the dining hall with a week old babe in her arms, lost and alone and on the run.

“Where’s the father, sweet child?” A man had asked her the day before.

“Dead.”

“A war widow?” Jeyne had nodded. “Poor girl. What was his name?”

She shook her head. “I-It was no highborn boy, Ser.”

“Still he had a name.”

He had left her alone after that: the day her babe had been pulled from her by her own two hands. She’d cried when it had been born a boy and had given the lady at the Inn half of her silver to give them a bed and room and food for two moons. She would stay there until her boy was healthy enough to ride; it was a nice and comfy enough Inn, Jeyne supposed, and the landlady had given her shirts for the babe from when her boy had been a babe and a bale of hay for a bed. It was not the life a prince should be living.

The man who had queried her about Robb came to her a second day as she broke her fast. This time she paid more attention to him: he had short and dark hair, a little beard and dressed in purple robes.

“Who did he fight for?”

“The Riverlands, Ser.”

“Was he a bastard?”

“No.”

“Is your child?”

“No,” Jeyne said, “do you know who I am?”

“I think I know who you are.”

Jeyne bit her lip. “If I trusted you I’d tell you.”

The man rose to leave, holding his hands out in exasperation. “Then I suppose I’ll never know; I am not a man to be trusted.”

Jeyne had given him a little laugh and allowed the strange man to glance quickly at her son, but then the man left, his robes floating behind her. She glanced across the room in wonder if anyone had recognised the strange man, but no one did. If they did, then they never told her when he returned the third day, asking for the boy’s name.

“He doesn’t have one yet.”

“Did your husband choose one?”

“He wasn’t alive long enough to talk about it.”

“Sweet boy,” commented the man. “Honourable too.”

She scowled at him, placing a protective hand on her son’s body. “You do know who I am.”

“Then tell me who I think you are.”

“You told me not to trust you.”

“You’re smarter than I thought, child,” the man rose from the bench. “If you think about telling me your name, perhaps I could help you.”

You cannot help me. No one can help me. She was bursting to tell him that and might have done too if her son did not stir in her arms: a constant reminder of what she had loved and lost. The dark haired man in the purple robes slid a gold coin across the table to her and Jeyne snatched it up, frightened that someone else might see the glint of gold in the candle flame and steal it from her. She held it tight in her hand and smiled and thanked the strange man who returned the following day.

“Did you steal much gold when you ran away from home?”

“Four gold pieces and eighty silver.”

“Is that all your family had?”

“It’s all I could get.”

“I have gold. Much more than what I gave you yesterday. What shall you spend it on, I wonder? A new gown? A new pair of dove skin slippers?”

“Something for my son,” Jeyne growled. “I never liked dove skin slippers.”

Chortling: “I could give your son a better life.”

“I’m all he needs.”

“Financial stability is unnecessary in a child’s life I know,” he replied sardonically. “Give me your name and I can help you.”

“You already know who I am.”

He gave her an odd smile. “I want to hear you say it.”

“Jeyne.”

“Jeyne what?”

“Jeyne Stark.”

A similar grin to the one Robb had given her when she told him their babe grew inside her formed on his thin lips. He extended his hand and she took it graciously, kissing her hand he said, “my Queen.”

“Who are you? Did my mother send you?”

“Your mother doesn’t know where you are, sweet child, nor does she know where I am. I can help you, I promised I would help you and I always keep my promises. I’ll look after the son of Robb Stark: the King of the North if you help me in return.”

“What could you possibly want with me, Ser?”

“Now that is a deal for another day, sweet girl. If you wish to make it out of here alive; I lied to you; the landlady here is of the Westerlands, she knows the Lannisters quite well and she reported to them a well dressed, heavily pregnant girl. If you want to escape with your son’s life then you’ll have to leave this Inn now and come with me.”

“You told me not to trust you.”

“I also told you that I thought I knew who you were; I knew from the moment I saw that direwolf clasp around your neck. You’re a pretty girl, but not conventionally clever, are you?”

“Why do you want to help me, Ser?”

“If I help you, I help the King of the North and all of Winterfell and the lands beyond the Reach. I help the Lord Commander of the Wall: Robb Stark’s natural brother. There’s a lot in it for me. Now take my arm and ride with me to my camp. There’s someone else I want you to meet.”

She did as he told her to, pulling her hood over her head after she left the Inn. I am clever, Ser, she disagreed with him, but he was offering her help and the Gods knew she needed all the help she could need. He bustled her into a turnip cart as he took the reins up front. Jeyne thought it would be a long ride to his camp, but alas it was not.

“You never told me your name,” Jeyne realised as the anonymous man lifted her from the turnip trunk and onto solid ground.

Rows and rows of tents lined up along the vast and empty land which ran along a river. Banners of proud houses Jeyne had been forced to learn from the East lands read one sigil from another and a few from the Riverlands and the North were present too. Robb’s men.

“You never told me your sons name.”

“He doesn’t have a name.”

“You knew his name from the instant his father died. Come sweet girl, give me the name of your son.”

“Robb,” Jeyne breathed. “No finer name.”

“No finer name,” he agreed. “A young girl I know will be disappointed; I know she so desperately wanted to give her son the name of such an honourable young man.”

“Perhaps if you gave me yours I could sympathise with her more.”

The name he gave her haunted the air. “Petyr Baelish.”

 


End file.
